Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Have you ever had a near death experience?

Many people have.

I had one last year.

On September 27, 2021, I was rear-ended by a 20,000+ pound truck that was going around 60 mph while I was stopped behind a group of cars that had come to a halt because of a coal truck turning off of the road.

At that moment, life slowed down.

Everything was in slow motion.

I saw the truck barreling toward me and my life flashed before my eyes.

I was actually listening to a podcast at the time by a Christian radio host - Todd Friel - and had a good morning worshiping the Lord.

I remember having the thought that at least I was going home at an opportune time when it came to serving the Lord!

The feeling of this being it seemed close at hand.

As the truck hit me and the rear glass shattered and my would be totaled car spun out of control, I felt a lot like Jonah explained in his psalm of prayer in this chapter.

Death was here for me.

For me, however, it had been a good run so far.

I wasn’t ready to leave my wife and kids behind, but I felt confident that I would be welcomed in by my Savior - not because of how great I was - but because of how great He was in saving my wretched soul.

Praise the Lord, He sovereignly protected me that early morning and the impact of the truck spun me out of the way so that I didn’t take the full brunt of the force.

God graciously offered me an earthly form of salvation.

Yet through it all, I was blessed with peace from God.

Jonah, however didn’t have that same peace as we start this second chapter.

He was in rebellion to God at the time.

He was not only in the darkness as he plunged to the depths of the sea - but he felt distance from his Creator because of his rebellion.

Today we are going to be in Jonah chapter 2. We are going to see that as he is plunging down into the sea and on the verge of death he finally turns to the Lord.

Just when everything seems all but lost, the Lord responds in the depths of the sea with a surprising form of salvation.

Let us pray.

Prayer

Today we are going to discuss how God hears our prayers when we cry out to Him in humility.

The first is:

I.

The Lord Hears Your Prayers of Distress (1-2)

We mentioned last week that Jonah had yet to pray to the Lord throughout the entire ordeal on the ship.

Despite the wind and storm being hurled by God at him… despite the ship threatening to break into pieces… despite the pleas from the ship crew… and even despite his imminent death - he had yet to pray.

And so we finally see after he narrowly escapes death because of the mercy of God sending this great fish, Jonah prays to the Lord.

This word, ‘prayed,’ that we see in verse 1 is the usual formal Hebrew word for prayer.

Other than here in verse 1 and in Jonah 4:2, the word used for speaking to God or the gods is call out throughout this book.

This word is used to show the earnestness of Jonah truly praying to Yahweh.

His stubborn will has finally been broken.

It has taken him to the point of death to get to a point where he is ready to obey.

Frankly, it has taken him to the point of death until he would even finally speak to God again!

And Jonah is praying from the belly of the fish.

We can only imagine the mixed emotions he has when he starts this prayer.

But he is going to reflect on what he went through after being thrown from the ship and plunged to the depths of the sea in this prayer psalm.

The author replaces the belly of the fish with the belly of Sheol in verse two.

Jonah sees this great fish as the depths of death.

As Price and Nida put it, Jonah had “one foot in the grave.”

Sheol was a place of the death in Hebrew thinking.

The idea of the afterlife was debated by early Hebrew scholars.

There were many opinions on this and to go into great detail on this study would be impossible due to time constraints.

However, Sheol was known as a place where the dead went.

It was usually used in a negative light and had more of an idea of being eternally separated from God (although occasionally it was used as a reference just for death and the grave).

Obviously Jesus clarified heaven and Hell in the New Testament.

This was clarified because the Savior had come.

It was at this dark time - in the belly of the great fish or almost in the belly of Sheol that Jonah finally prayed.

It is amazing how rebellious people will finally call out when they are in despair or distress.

It is sad that it takes such extreme trials to get some people to acknowledge and cry out to God.

Jonah was one of these people.

It took extreme measures to get him to cry out to God in prayer.

Many who suffer distress in life ask the question - Why does God allow suffering?

It is because of the suffering of man, the groaning of our earth that is subjected to sin (which is seen through tornadoes, flooding, hurricanes etc), and spiritual warfare that goes on around us that we sense that something isn’t right.

We can only recognize that we are missing something (namely Christ) and that something isn’t right because of the suffering that we see around us.

So the short answer to why does God allow suffering is this:

If God removed all suffering, we would not see our need for a Savior.

Jonah is a great example of this fact.

Jonah didn’t reach out until he experienced suffering.

And sadly, many people do not reach out until they experience suffering as well.

Getting back to the end of verse two we this:

Jonah 2:2 (ESV)

saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

The beauty of this verse is seen in the last few words.

And you heard my voice.

Our God does hear us when we call out in humility to Him.

And He responds with grace and mercy.

So we have seen that the Lord hears your prayers of distress… and He also...

Scripture References: Jonah 4:2; Genesis 3:22,24

II.

The Lord Hears Your Prayers in the Depths (3-6)

We have all heard of the phrase ‘rock bottom’ I am sure.

We mention people that have to hit ‘rock bottom’ - meaning they have to experience horrible consequences of their sin in order to repent and turn to God.

Jonah was one such man as we see here.

And he recognizes the sovereign hand of God who was the one who sovereignly sent this.

He doesn’t say the ship crew threw him into the deep.

He knows they were used by God so He says God threw him into the heart of the sea.

Jonah gives us a vivid detail of his experience in the depths of the ocean.

Let’s break down a few of these:

The flood surrounded me

Your waves and billows pressed over me

The waters closed in over me to take my life

The deep surrounded me

Weeds were wrapped about my head

He was at the roots of the mountains.

He went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever

We see these 7 details about what he experienced.

The flood surrounded him.

If you have ever seen a flash flood then you know the water moves extremely quickly and takes everything in its path with it.

It is devastating.

We have just seen this in McDowell County, WV as they have experienced the devastating effects of flash flooding.

Keep them in your prayers as we and other churches seek to help support them.

Then we see the waves and billows pressing over him.

He is struggling to stay afloat.

He cannot fight the raging waters that would calm within moments.

Soon after, the waters closed in over him and the deep surrounded him.